Today's News

MAX MEADOWS –– Carroll County’s work on the offensive boards was admirable. Grayson County’s was efficient.

More than half of Carroll’s 47 rebounds were off its own misses, but the Cavaliers could turn only nine of those 25 extra chances into points Tuesday as Grayson County took a 68-60 win in the opening round of the First Bank of Virginia Tournament at Fort Chiswell High School.

Or at least we can say that at midnight. Bob Feller, Don Meredith, Ron Santo, John Wooden, Sparky Anderson, George Blanda, Manute Bol, George Steinbrenner, Merlin Olsen, we wish you could have made it with us.

Earl Weaver is still among the living, or at least that’s what he says, contrary to a recent political column in the New York Times that read, in part, “…somewhere in heaven, Earl Weaver and Ann Richards are comparing notes…”

INDEPENDENCE — To fluoridate or not to fluoridate? That is the question Grayson County leaders will have to make in the coming weeks for a new water system that will serve the towns of Independence and Sparta, N.C.
After citizens showed up in masses to both Alleghany County Commissioners and Sparta Town Council with 1,000-plus signatures on a petition against fluoridation, both N.C. governments voted against the procedure for the new water system being developed by the Virginia-Carolina Regional Water Authority.

Click on the links at the end of this story to view original documents, including the property deed, Gary Larrowe's financial disclosures and minutes of the Blue Ridge Crossroads Economic Development Authority meetings. Also, click on the video link to see Mike Goldwasser speaking at the December meeting of the Carroll County Board of Supervisors.

Since the city has wrapped up the downtown revitalization project, construction of Chestnut Creek School of the Arts, the permanent stage in Felts Park and other projects, it has begun looking into funding for improving the Givens/Shaw/Barger street areas.

The city plans to seek Community Development Block Grants through the Department of Housing and Community Development and funding through other agencies.

For 28 years, U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher divided his time between the mountains of Southwest Virginia and the ornate buildings on Capitol Hill.
By all accounts, the long-serving congressman's roots and life in the 9th District thoroughly influenced his work in Washington — and vice versa.

Boucher was known on Capitol Hill for his work on the cutting edge of technology and telecommunications, and he consistently tried to use that knowledge to build a 21st century economy in Southwest Virginia.

A chain reaction of crashes in the snow and ice on Interstate 77 in Carroll County on Sunday resulted in minor injuries.
The Hillsville Volunteer Fire Department was responding to a single-car crash involving a vehicle on its side on Sunday afternoon when firefighters received a call to a three-car accident in the southbound lanes of I-77, near the 21 milemarker.

HILLSVILLE — Severe cuts to Virginia Cooperative Service personnel is no way to grow a new generation of community leaders, said concerned citizens protesting the agency's restructuring.
Five speakers talked to the Carroll Board of Supervisors earlier this month about the benefits of having an Extension office and personnel in the county — not five counties sharing one.

The latest additions to the Virginia Landmarks Register, announced last week, include more than 4,000 acres of northeastern Grayson County.
The Spring Valley Rural Historic District recognizes the community as a center of farming and commercial agriculture in Southwest Virginia.

The district also will be considered for the National Register of Historic Places.
The application for historic landmark status was prepared by Hill Studio in Roanoke, on behalf of Spring Valley property owner Donald Philen, who privately sponsored this project.